A new face — or, should we say, a bubble gum mane? — debuted on the recent Louis Vuitton fall runway, and, as quick as you could ask, "Who's that girl?" the fashion world was buzzing about Fernanda Ly, aka "the model with the pink hair."

But there's way more to the 19-year-old Aussie than a distinctive 'do. The Manic Panic devotee (Cotton Candy Pink is her go-to shade) speaks Cantonese, has interest in being a set designer, and is completing a degree in architecture — a passion she shares with Louis Vuitton's artistic director, Nicolas Ghesquière. "He's always telling me which places I should see in Paris!" Fernanda reveals.

Since she stepped off that catwalk and watched her Instagram followers soar to more than 40,000, Fernanda has been adjusting to life as a model on the go. "I still miss home," she says. "When I'm not working or sleeping, I'm on the phone with my parents or Snapchatting with friends in Sydney." Luckily Fernanda's major loves — ice cream and café hunting — are easily indulged when she's in the Big Apple (you'll currently find her at Morgenstern's Finest Ice Cream parlor, on the Lower East Side, or at Chinatown's Big Wong King with model buddies Hao Yun Xiang and Zhang Xu Chao). And now that she's making waves in the industry, she's bound to be knee-deep in designer threads, right? Not Fernanda. "I prefer street brands, especially Unif, and I'm trying out plaid," she says. "I'm usually in all black, but sometimes I'm on a shoot and I'm like, 'Hey, this works!'"

That's not to say she'll be swayed by another hair color anytime soon; for the time being it's staying as is — the shade she thought looked cutest next to her friend's purple dye job. "I'm used to changing it every week, so it's annoying, but it's also nice to not worry about what color to go next," she notes. "I'd actually really like a bob. But that's a classic long- hair problem — you think you want to cut it all off, then a week later you're like, 'Uh oh!'"